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I grew up in Connecticut, met my girl in South Carolina in college and now we are looking to move to either Philadelphia, Memphis, or Miami area because of optometry school.
I'm looking for insight into the following: Job market, I'm young and looking to start a career, safety, and recreation. We love live music and great food (prefer healthy). We are also "eco-consious" and want to live in a progressive area that offers recycling, parks, and good public transportation.
Can anyone offer insight into which area might be best for us?
I can't speak for the other two cities, but in Miami, you will be hard pressed to find a job doing ANYTHING, if you are not fully bilingual in Español.
i don't think i will find any arguments that Philadelphia is by far the most progressive of these cities. Also likely the most eco friendly although i'm not very familiar with the eco friendly efforts of miami or memphis.
the job market in philly in generally tough... but compared to the rest of the country i'm not sure... it's pretty bad everywhere right now.
as far as entertainment and restaurants go i don't really think memphis can compare with miami or philly. and philly due to the virtue of being so much bigger than these other cities is tough to beat.
obviously Philadelphia doesn't have the safest reputation but if you live in the right area you can be very safe.
Miami is the least cesspool like of the 3, Philly is the most
What qualifies you making that statement. All of these cities are very different from eachother. Philadelphia is by far the largest and most developed of these cities. Miami is also a great city but has a very different culture and way of life than philadelphia. I dont know anything about Memphis so i cant speak for it, but i know it is a lot smaller than philadelphia in all aspects.
Please ignore Californioo.
I also think Philadelphia is a good match for you. The job market is pretty bad everywhere, but PA is doing pretty well for itself despite the economy. I'm not sure about the eco-friendliness. Philadelphia does pretty well on its own in the entertainment area, and it doesn't hurt that its close to New York City, and D.C.
I'm not a big fan of Philadelphia at this point, but I think it fits your description of what you're looking for fairly well. (The biggest question mark would be safety, but as others have said, you can cut down most of your risk by just being careful about where you go.) Philadelphia is a great city for food, some of it healthy, some of it not very healthy. But there are enough options that you'll be able to find something that suits you. Again, for live music you should be fine there. There is always a lot going on. You can get around easily by public transportation, though it tends to be a little on the expensive side.
Public transportation- practically non existent and what's available is unreliable.
Recycling, good program with curbside recycling in the city, more info here.
Parks- Memphis does well in this area IMO Shelby Farms, Overton Park and Meeman-Shelby Forest. No beaches or hilly hiking trails though. New greenline trail through the city from mid Memphis to Shelby Farms.
Live music- Beale Street and a few other places do a fair job, we also have 2011 Memphis in May (http://www.memphisinmay.org/lineup - broken link) that brings in a lot of acts, really big name concerts usually require that you go to Nashville or ST. Louis though.
Great food- BBQ of course, a fair number of decent hole in the wall places and some good ethnic places. Not sure on "healthy" if by that you mean organic restaurants. The other two cities probably have Memphis beat by a country mile on the variety of offerings.
Safety- Memphis is not as bad as the numbers make it out to be. Unlike a lot of cities Memphis does not simply report the most egregious crime. A single incident may result in several different charges being filed, skewing the stats as compared to other cities. Like most other cities of any size Memphis has it's good and bad areas, it is not difficult to avoid the worst areas.
The economy has not been terrific lately, like most everywhere else, but there seem to be several projects in the works that could have a positive impact on the area.
Memphis is recovering from years of a very divisive mayor, racial tension might be a concern. Hopefully, now that he is out of office, Memphis can grow beyond that.
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